Synthetic biology brings together the disciplines of engineering, biology and bioinformatics. Its focus is to make the engineering of biology easier and more predictable. Synthetic biology could improve production methods in a wide variety of markets such as biofuels and energy, environmentally friendly chemicals, drug development and new material fabrication. It is estimated that the synthetic biology research market could be worth over $1.5 billion by 2013.
Microengineering capabilities can help to address some of the most significant challenges faced in the field. For example, the use of integrated microfluidic systems provides biologists with a powerful platform for advancing synthetic biology.
Microfluidics deals with the manipulation of minute amounts of fluid (usually micro or nanoliters) within microchannels. Biological targets can be transported in these channels for diverse manipulation. The advantages of microfluidic systems over conventional systems include reagent consumption reduction, waste reduction, cost-effectiveness and portability. Additionally, microfluidic technologies have the potential to achieve high-throughput, highly parallel biological operations. Many challenges are encountered in the fabrication of highly integrated microfluidic systems, such as the assembly of different materials and the integration of active components.
Kong et al, Nucleic Acids Res. 2007; 35(8): e61; Epub 2007 Apr. 2 and WO2007/137242 describes parallel gene synthesis in a microfluidic device. Kong et al report the fabrication of a multi-chamber microfluidic device and its use in carrying out the synthesis and amplification of several DNA constructs of up to 1 kb in length. The synthesis reactions were carried out using polymerase construction and amplification (PCA) and the products amplified by PCR.
The microfluidic device was fabricated from PDMS and it was necessary to use a non-ionic surfactant, n-Dodecyl-β-D-maltoside (DDM) as a passivating agent.
Lee et al., Nucleic Acids Res. 2010; 38(8): 2514-21; Epub 2010 Feb. 21 describes a microfluidic oligonucleotide synthesizer. A PDMS-based microfluidic device was used as a miniaturized synthesizer for solid-phase parallel synthesis of oligonucleotides.